Unit 6: Prosperity and Depression (1919-1941)
After the First World War, the economy is strong and Americans just want to relax and have some fun. The Roaring Twenties has dancing, jazz, speakeasies, and flappers before the party comes to a crashing halt in 1929. A combination of a bad stock market crash and government inaction results in the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected in 1933 with plans to use the government to jump start the national economy by borrowing money and providing jobs. Some argue that the new government goes too far in controlling business and the economy.


TEXTBOOK CHAPTERS:
Chapter No. in Book
Chapter Title
Chapter No. in Computer
16
The Twenties
20
17
The Great Depression
21
18
The New Deal
22





MAJOR CONCEPTS: Capitalism, Laissez-faire, Mass production, Consumer debt, Speculation, Modernism, Fundamentalism, Prohibition, Harlem Renaissance, New Deal, Deficit spending, Welfare state

  • The US shifted back toward a laissez-faire policy of government non-intervention in the economy.
  • Americans bought more - and put more on credit - than ever before.
  • Cultural tensions grew between traditional Americans and a more modern, urban culture.
  • Americans looked on as Tennessee debated the idea of teaching evolution in schools.
  • A brief experiment in the prohibition of alcohol resulted in an increase in organized crime.
  • Young women began to challenged traditional ideas of womanhood.
  • African Americans in New York's Harlem neighborhood celebrated black culture.
  • The party ended with a stock market crash which, combined with government non-intervention, resulted in a catastrophic economic depression.
  • Franklin Roosevelt is elected, promising to use the federal government to fix the broken economy.
  • Roosevelt's New Deal provides relief, but opposition to federal power grows.


Unit 6 Day 1
Topics: Mass production, Model T, consumer culture, installment buying, buying on margin, Harding and Coolidge administrations, Dawes Plan

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Analyze how the booming economy of the 1920s changed American life.
  • Evaluate the policies of the Harding and Coolidge administrations after the war.

Quickwrite: How did changes in industry wages compare to agricultural wages during the early 1900s?

Homework: Read Ch. 16.3 (Honors: Charts)

Unit 6 Day 2
Topics: Traditionalism, modernism, Scopes Trial, quota system, Ku Klux Klan, Prohibition, organized crime

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Analyze the differences between urban and rural values after the war.
  • Assess the rise of a new Klan organization.
  • Analyze the impact of Prohibition on the rise of organized crime in the US.

Quickwrite: What do the words "tradition" and "modern" mean to you? Provide an example of each.

Homework: Read Ch. 16.4 & 16.5 (Honors: Charts)

Unit 6 Day 3
Topics: Movies, radio, sports, flappers, modern art and literature, Marcus Garvey, Jazz Age, Harlem Renaissance

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Assess how mass media and mass culture changed during the 1920s.
  • Analyze the role of the "new woman" during the Roaring Twenties.
  • Assess how African Americans expressed a new sense of hope and pride in the postwar climate.

Quickwrite: How did work life in urban areas change by 1930?

Homework: Read Ch. 17.1 (Honors: Charts)

Unit 6 Day 4
Topics: Herbert Hoover, speculation, Black Tuesday, business cycle, Great Depression, Hawley-Smoot Tariff

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Analyze the economic problems that lay under the surface of the 1920s prosperity.
  • Analyze how the stock market crash of 1929 evolved into a major economic depression.

Quickwrite: How much debt had American consumers racked up during the 1920s?

Homework: Read Ch. 17.2 & 17.3 (Honors: Charts)

Unit 6 Day 5
Topics: Breadlines, Hoovervilles, Dust Bowl, Okies, rugged individualism, trickle-down economics, Bonus Army

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Assess the effects of the Great Depression on urban workers, rural farmers, families and minorities.
  • Evaluate President Hoover's policies in reaction to the worsening depression.

Quickwrite: How much did Americans' average yearly income decrease between 1929 and 1933?

SAS #612: Great Depression

Homework: Read Ch. 18.1 & 18.2 (Honors: Charts)

Unit 6 Day 6
Topics: Franklin D. Roosevelt, New Deal, First Hundred Days, Second New Deal, Social Security, New Deal opposition

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Evaluate the New Deal's attempt to address the problems of the Great Depression.
  • Analyze the criticisms of the New Deal and Roosevelt's reactions to those criticisms.

Quickwrite: How were Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt related? When was each president?

SAS#1256: FDR & the New Deal

Homework: Read Ch. 18.3 & 18.4 (Honors: Charts)

Unit 6 Day 7
Topics: Federal power, welfare state, Black Cabinet, Hollywood, Dorothea Lange, Federal Arts Project

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Analyze how the New Deal changed American society, politics and economics for future generations.
  • Assess how Americans found relief from their hardships in mass media and entertainment during the 1930s.

Quickwrite: What North Carolina tourist attraction was a New Deal project? (see pp. 622-623)

Homework: Study for Unit 6 test on chapters 16-18.

Unit 6 Day 8
Topics: Unit 6 test tomorrow

Learning Objectives:
Students will
  • Catch up and prepare for Unit 6 test tomorrow on chapters 16-18.

Quickwrite: Create a multiple choice question for the test.

Homework: Study for Unit 6 test on chapters 16-18.

Unit 6 Test Day
Study Guide
Homework: Read Ch. 19.1 & 19.2 (Honors: Charts)



Links:
US History Textbook Site